Understanding new governance in China: a casestudy of the 2006 revision of the compulsory education law of thePeople's Republic of China

Abstract

This thesis examines the ways in which the role of the National People’s Congress (NPC) has evolved within the political system of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), as well as the implications for the formulation and deliberation of educational policy. This research reported herein compared the revision of the PRC’s Compulsory Education Law, which the National People’s Congress’ Standing Committee (NPCSC) adopted in 2006, with the Compulsory Education Law adopted in 1986, with special reference to the education finance issues underlying the country’s compulsory education provisions. Underlying this research is an attempt to identify and understand new governance emerging in China.

The findings of a careful study of documents and data obtained from in-depth interviews suggest that the NPC played a qualitatively different role in the 2006 revision of the Compulsory Education Law than in the original. First, in this revision, where necessary, the NPCSC and its working committees provided a legal platform that was used for negotiation, bargaining, and compromise among ministries of the Central People’s Government and local people’s governments. Second, the NPC was used as a way to hold the latter accountable to the former on this particular issue. Third, through the platform provided by the NPCSC and its working committees, the NPC became a key actor in deliberating on, formulating, and monitoring the finance-related policies in the 2006 revision. In the aggregate, as this thesis argues, this constitutes a fundamentally different legal approach to formulating these policies. The emphasis is now placed on legally and mutually binding agreements between the Central and local people’s governments, and hence on the implementability (可操作性) of finance-related policies based on a clear division of responsibility among the parties concerned. This change in legal approach would render a different model of policy implementation and monitoring, with a relative tightening of control by both the State Council (SC) and the NPC over local administrations’ power to organize and administer China’s educational system. Based on the findings presented in Chapters five and six, this research refined a new institutional approach to depicting policy-making in contemporary China. As the Chinese polity becomes more complex, the dynamic relationship between the NPC and the SC must be redefined in light of changes in the distribution of decision-making power between the two. It is argued in this thesis that the NPC’s substantial involvement in the relationship between the Central and local people’s governments not only indicates changes in the dynamics of the institutional relationship among the central legislature and the Central and local people’s governments, but also reflects changes in the modality of governance adopted by the Chinese Communist Party. Finally, this thesis argues that regulation-oriented concept of governance, rather than a general concept of governance initially developed in the West, may offer a better understanding of new governance emerging in China.